Thursday, 31 January 2013

2gb iPhone apps

As of January the 10th 2013 the maximum size of an app in the Apple app store is 2Gb, OTA still stays at 50mb maximum as of October 2012, up from 20mb... on the 20th of january Microsoft followed suit increasing max app size to 50mb and about a year ago Android upped the odds to 4gb! But why is this important?

App size important?

There are various reasons why app size is important:

App multi-platform homogenisation

Homogenisation: if you are a developer and want to develop across the main platforms: iOS+Android or iOS+Android+WP8 then you are going to want to reuse assets. while you can get away with a smaller app on wp8 due to the lack of fragmentation of screen size to date, fragmentation on iOS and Android is about the same despite what some developers with a bias to one platform or the other say (believe me, I have ported more variety of apps to and from more platform than anybody I know in the app business) - so if your iOS app is 50mb, then your android app is likely to be in the 40-60mb size as well, once you have factored in assets for everything from low-def screen and high-def screen phones to tablets of various sizes and resolutions as well...

App size user experience

Most important however is user experience! Yes that 3rd or 4th priority on your list after filling categories, how many apps, gross downloads and gross sales... and the trend towards bigger apps, which is following the trend to bigger storage (iPhone 3G = 4gb, 3GS 8gb, 4+ 16gb) what the apps developers and app store managers are forgetting is that there is a lot competing for this space and moore's law does not appear to be as kind to storage as it is to video and image size alone for example.

Where do you think a user will look to cut space first?

We all have had the dreaded "out of space, please delete..." scenario, and we go to this screen on iOS... what do you think the customer is going to do - ditch images at 2mb and 2 minutes an image = 30mb in half an hour, or just delete a data hogging app? Yep they will delete a data hogging app.

Data hogging apps

So all your app store work invested in getting a major houses apps on board, into a category and promoted can be ruined in one foul swoop as a customer goes in and decimates all the Moshi Monster related apps... and then tells all his/her friends that "can you believe I had half a gb of space..." I most recently had this issue on top of a mountain in the middle of Wales:

When faced with a view like this and no space for pictures - space hungry apps get deleted and never re-installed

with one of the best views bar none and a stretch of 400m descent, with a need to be at the front so as to not be caught behind slower friends on my one big downhill of the year... with no mobile coverage to cloud... yes I hacked the big apps ... an no I NEVER downloaded them again - worse, I now avoid that category of apps all together!

App Store category filling

Do all these apps have the same level of image richness?

What this means is; you could end up with entire categories of apps not being used / downloaded / spread by users just because they are too big. The apps above do not have the same level of image richness yet they are all the same size. A use knows what apps they can live with and live without, and half a gb of apps to keep their kids happy may get binned, unless they are of the "here, have my phone while I contemplate why I had kids before I was ready" variety of human that plague restaurants and bars the world over... I have now deleted all retail apps from my device an avoid the category altogether as the apps were all space hoggers.

App space usage

The final issue is app space usage. Autostitch at the top of the list (top image) is clearly storing images both in my images section and within its own allocation of space... this is OKish as its one of my iPhone killer apps but fusion stream at 106b (the key is in the "stream" bit!) is obviously going to go, when Twonky does the same at 20mb (top image and below).

When image rich apps like Warhol come in at 20mb, 50mb is OTT for most apps

App store quality vs quantity

So when you next update app store guidelines and up the max file size... think of the effect on your users: thee is no point having 500,000 apps in the store, when the average size of apps at 20mb vs 50m means the difference between only being able to have 50 apps or 20 apps on your phone before size becomes an issue... yes chaps, once again its time to focus on quality vs quantity in app land! allowing 2gb or 4gb apps means 1 or 2 apps alone can halve the amount of space a user is willing to use for apps, or can even obliterate a whole category(s) from your store in just a few apps...

Friday, 18 January 2013

First the apps were the focus of attention; how many we have, how many we are adding; then the UE was polished and we now have a pretty slick UE in every major app store... the one thing that still strikes me as needing attention is: Segmentification.

Firstly, let's get the scientific diagram out of the way :)

Appus Evolutio - How We went from collection to segmentification in app stores

So why is 2013 the year of segementification?

1) the categories themselves, their selection still seems random, copy and paste; if a category is empty "we must find content for that category" seems to be the rule rather than asking "do we need that category?"

2) the focus of these categories' content has until now been base upon what was avalailable and what developers made, now there are 10,000 ifart apps, and we have moved from early adopter to mass market, we should now segment around usage, target audience and supply apps aournd a type of handset usage, not an app availability and not what developers create or where we can get content for.

Its getting the push-pull balance right in 2013.

In short, we have enough content, slick UEs; we now need to refine categories

While we still have some people saying "we are adding x thousand apps per day to our store" that process will get to the question I am asking quickly, and ideally will ask this question now to spend money more wisely and get a better user experience.

I have been looking at this for a few app stores and worked in this way for smaller app discovery portals / app stores that I have worked on for handset manufacturers to help specific customer groups discover content, and guess what: it works; uptake is quicker, wider and moreover, continues for longer. The positioning here has even broken down into different propositions and product groups, usually based around the handset manufacturer's own customer segmentation.

I was reminded of this when I saw a recent article on how people use mobile on HBR which showed used graphically on a "wheel" in a similar way to how I showed content vs downloads by category on a recent app store project.

Are your categories, and their content in line with how your customers use their mobile?Diagram Harvard Business Review

And it struck me that this does not translate well to how categories are filled even in the most mature app store, like the Apple app store, and is not too dissimilar from what WAP was, and most mobile operators portals today. What is worse with operator mobile web portals, is that unlike apps, a lot of the content is paid for! Paying for content that does not match your customer... does this sound familiar? :)

What we immediately see is that, with the exception of education, but we will come onto that later; the top categories that make up the majority are in-line with the "me time" in the top chart from HBR.

However, from there, not so sure, and even then, how much of the "me time" can now be done better via a mobile web page than via the app? for which customer segments Are "Games", "entertainment", "Lifestyle" and "ebooks" - "me time".

Then you look at productivity and getting things done, and we are somewhat "underserved". We could say the same regarding social and shopping, however the counter argument is that just one, two or three social apps do all the social we need, and the same for shopping.

So what?

As someone I used to work with used to say: "the so-what of that is"

are we addressing the right customers with the right apps, are we attracting the right apps to our platform and how should we influence?

should we "segment" the app store by customer type

Attracting the right apps

The first point is looking at trends like gaming and the dreadful word that was "gamification" (I do not know if its worse in the tech or culinary world), and is it evolving the right way into more "me time" or is it becoming social. You could argue that these categories move with a life of their own, however if you promote one type rather than another on your store you can influence the way developers prioritise their roadmap of updates and how you sway your content.

From the other side, its clear that people are using their mobile more to accomplish things, however are the utilities and productivity categories innovating to match this? I think not, and this could be where we should be devoting our app store evangelisation, developer resources, competition and other developer incentives to nurture this hitherto neglected category even for app stores like the Blackberry store, which brings me to my next point....

Segmenting the app store(s)

A product that recently caught my attention was a "Hello Kitty" tablet, I hasten to add not for me personally, and it caught my attention in two ways:

it was "not that bad" (7" screen, Android 4.0) and only cost £80

it had its own app store and music store, you guessed it: focussed at its target market, as well as the de rigueur hello kitty wallpaper, theme, UI skin, etc.

We can easily make the education category the only section of the app store that is accessible during the week, for example, to attract the parent buying for the child market, the question is: do we have enough content here.

A second question was raised via a colleague in the industry who bought a kindle hd for his son, and did not even consider a nexus 7, for example. His view was that if you are going to get an ebook; more or less get an ebook with frills, not a frills-pad with ebook... And when we look above at the frills-pad stats and see books at only 7%... he has a point...

There are many more of these examples, from cameras with android in them, to....

"Segmentification" is among us

So the segmentation at the device level has started, the customers have started diverging, the question is, are the device manufacturers, mobile operators and developers ready for "segmentification"! or will it sneak up on them like every evolution so far???

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

The new iOS and iPhone 5 release have seen a very welcome overhaul of the app store install, open newly installed app and update process. Some of these changes take tips from the Android process, in that you can now see the process of your updates in the main screen and click to open directly from there, while they have been implemented in true Apple style - with a great deal of welcome thought to the UX.

The progress of the install and update process on one screen rather than home page is a refreshing update to iOS

So is this revolutionary? does it "change everything, again"?. well, no, not really, but it does a few things which make this seemingly simple change quite important to the development of app stores, as much as the recent overhaul of the Android Store and the Windows 7.5 store:

A little known fact, seldom tackled in the industry is the fact is that not everybody downloads apps! The early adopters and higher end users download apps between ordering dry skinny lattes, however there is a larger part of even the iPhone market who go months without downloading an app, after having downloaded 5 to 10 in one go - that is their daughter, son, boyfriend, PA, gardener or pastry chef has downloaded their apps for them, as they are not comfortable or feel they do not have the knowlegde to do so and we need to change this. Uniformity between platforms, which this moves towards, and transparency of what is going which is very well executed, as can be expected from Apple and is very present here, all on helps promote app adoption.

updating apps... a big problem with apps vs. HTML5 vs. native is that once its out there it needs the user to update, and if they are in the above camp they will not readily update apps either, which is not ideal for an apps ecosystem owner, moreover one with such a considerable catalogue as Apple: How to get people to update more often is critical, and making the process as painless as the new version is does help.

So this is the page that we now see great the novice: single click to "install app" from the beginning, gone is the two stage process which only said "install app" after being clicked: to the mass market, this is more inviting, to the early adopted and voracious app consumers, this is a welcome UX improvement. I do want to say at this point, that this is not a criticism or a slant at Apple being late to a party; its more a development, a natural transition of the store which was not first but was first to get us all using apps, and has now implemented a mass market feature better than its predecessors. Apple, I give you the "again" even if I do not give you the "changes everything" :)

Install App: Simples...

I have started in the middle with the top image, moved to the beginning above; and so it only makes sense to now go to the end: where after install you can conveniently open the app. This has been around for a while on Android and encourages first use (we have all downloaded a "must-have" app and then deleted it weeks later, just like the small (and growing) collection of "must-read" books on my bookshelf...

click to open from install location

Especially slick is the update process, which handles multiple upgrades very gracefully indeed.

Tuesday, 10 April 2012

Some people may forget, but the Nokia had nokia beta apps, the precursor to the Symbian Ovi store pre the app store and it had a killer app and handset USP in the likes of Sportstracker, just like nokia maps became a handset USP with Ovi. many people also forget that Nokia mail predates RIM by a long shot. So, despite the fact that Ovi Its due for closure / name change absorption, etc at the end of 2012; will the Pureview 808 give it a last lease of life? in any case, it needs to be here as part of app store heritage :) read on here

Friday, 10 February 2012

I have been playing with Windows phone Marketplace recently... and I have to say I am impressed, especially with the Marketplace. Having worked app stores and seen the pitfalls and work involved to get something to this stage, and dare even say its the most polished product old MS has ever produced... Moreover, am very glad the punt seems to have paid off for Nokia and others who have put (slightly fewer) eggs in the Windows Phone basket, read the full article on Windows Phone Marketplace here

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

As I slowly move all my old blogs over to blogger, I am pasting the old content as a post, giving them a spring clean at the same time, and moving any posts that were visited most on the old blog or simply warrant highlighting getting their own post. At the same time I like to add a bit of recent context, so here goes:

App stores vs. App discovery portal vs On-device portal

Interestingly they all amount to the same thing: a way of engaging customers on a device to induce loyalty, promote data and device usage and generally make the product and service more useful to the user (and more profitable to the operator and manufacturer...)

It all started back in the late nineties / early naughties as an evolution of the then proprietary OS of each handset (adding menu option 7,8,9 on Nokia for example) and as a more flexible answer to SIM toolkit (STK) menus and customisation. Both were more flexible, additionally they could be added and modified closer to or even post launch, whereas the former were developed in handset development phases (then 18 months to 2 years).

So now what do they do and what is the difference. I will put more in the definitions page, but for now there are three distinctions:

Full blown app store: a conduit for the customer to download and access new content, requires usually a lot of back-end (billing, stats, developer portal, repository, versioning, etc) a lot of support (developer support, APIs, evangelising, etc) and front end (as content grows you need a roadmap for discovery alone - one of key mistakes of all new app stores post iPhone who either tried to emulate the iPhone - designed for 1000's times the content, or make their own adaptation with no plans for evolution or even the ability to evolve their chose store within the RFQ for the store provision...) as, most importantly, the leap of faith of your customer to agree to terms and conditions, payment, purchase data specifically for your new toy, etc, etc.... I have now worked two major app stores, and the same issues arise, as the same assumptions are made and the same corners are cut...

Content Discovery Store. I worked on one of the first ones of these for a major handset manufacturer, the goal is different, engage the customer without all the complexity: usually embedded content, focused around the type of person who typically buys the device, and a way of initiating people to content on their device. This is very important, as while the first early adopters of smartphones go straight to the app store, the me-too and mass market adopters need encouragement

On device portal. This can be either a single app, or a collection of content which can either be presented as an app experience or as a web experience. Opera Mini drives this line well, with the native widget and other stores powered by its browser essentially behaving like a front end to an app store, the java version and public opera mini being essentially an on-device portal. other examples have been for example mippin's catalogue and even imode to a certain extent. The key is that you embed an experience on the device outside of the native OS or general WAP functionality

If the Nokia experience has
taught me anything, it is the benefits of On Device Portals in both
moving the user forward from basic email and WAP data usage, and in
understanding better what users want from mobile value added services.
The two go hand-in-hand; WAP and other data services were just pushed at
the consumer, with little in the way of feedback, and consequently
uptake has been slow. The ODP allows not only for the provision of
services via mobile, but also the analysis and feedback of uptake and
usage that allows the development of services users actually want to
actively use and promote to other users. ODPs allow this for several
reasons:

A customer actively requests an On
Device Portal, at which time they can easily set preferences if it is
via a website. From thereon it is a single, branded, forwardable
destination for all related information; not a collection of bookmarks.

You can see how much and how often a user interacts, and reward them accordingly

You can see what phone, network and even tariff your user is on, as well as multiple phones, and analyse usage, user groups...

For a handset manufacturer, it gives
the manufacturer the ability to obtain and maintain a relationship with
other brand users, i.e. Nokia can have a relationship with users on
every or a chosen set of handsets, not just Nokias

A Network Operator can have a
relationship with users on other networks. I.e. if someone moves from
Vodafone, they lose Vodafone Live as a WAP portal, but Vodafone could
still interact with with other network users via an On Device Portal. If
the portal is useful enough, and had more features and perceived value
when on that network, the user may return to the network.

Similarly, a Network Operator can have
Business applications on company phones that have the same user
experience over all the phones the company uses, which can also include
contractors or employees on other networks, or those using Vodafone
SIMs from other territories.

ODPs solve the roaming WAP issue. Which
portal do you serve to a user abroad? My network operator seems to
think I do not want UK train times and weather when I am abroad, which I
mostly do not; until its time for my flight home.

Content owners can identify the most
relevant information for their users. A web user may browse 50 channels
on FT.com or BBC.co.uk, and randomly in terms of time. with an
associated ODP, the content owner can let the user subscribe to the most
important channels and have them update when the user chooses. The
content owner immediately knows what content is most relevant to whom
and when.

Content owners can also tailor their
content. with an ODP you can determine screen size, connectivity as well
other features such as supported media, and serve users with a more
tailored narrow-band/broadband service depending on whether they are on
Wi-Fi, 3G or GPRS at the time and only serve media on a compatible
player at the right resolution.

Essentially an ODP plugs the
gap between service convergence and device convergence, providing user
or community convergence: At present a group of individual's ability to
use and share information depends on either:

Service Convergence, Network Provider WAP
portal, or again Blackberry server and client software (could be on
smartphones, not just blackberry

The ODP allows for user or
community convergence, where a group of employees, a group of friends, a
family or even everybody on a social network, can enjoy a converged
service that looks, feels and works pretty much the same way;
independently the handset manufacturer, Operating System, Bearer
technology (GPRS, 3G, Wi-Fi enabled), screen size and even across
network operators in the same country and in different countries, even
when roaming.

The ODP can also be optimised
for the connection speed at that time, or more simply, an ODP portal can
be more data efficient full stop, and therefore work equally quickly
over GPRS or 3G, which is the case of icom's Search3D On Device Portal
technology used for the Nokia Mobile Festival Guides. To know more about
this contact me to discuss.

The dust has now settled on the
Carling Reading and Leeds music festivals, and the press coverage from
Nokia's mobile festival guide is astounding, just by Goggling "mobile festival guide"
you can get an idea. Moreover, the intelligence gathered, from what
pages people see, where they decided to send to a friend, what handsets
and what networks the core audience were on, are all vital Mobile CRM
information for Nokia, arguably achieving ROI just on the customer
insight alone.

originally posted by Christian Borrman 11:25am 25/09/07

Introduction

There has been a lot of talk
regarding mobile applications that manage web, content or other
functions via an application of the phone, or On Device Portals, most
notable was a prediction by Arcchart, that the market is to be worth $1.4 Bn by 2009.
There are many incarnations of ODPs, from an alternative to a WAP
browser like T-Mobile's own Java application, or even Opera Mini, to
very interesting tours of events, like the one at the latest london
smartphone show. Others include Yell mobile, or Sky Plus Mobile. For me
the ODP has two functions:

Web to mobile: while the Web enjoys a
large screen and input devices like a full keyboard and mouse to enable
the generic experience of for example entering the BBC or Google maps,
the mobile device is still as limited as ever by the size of the device
and a simple numeric keyboard and 5-way nav key at best. It is also
limited in power consumption and connectivity. The ODP therefore allows a
user to take their localised Google maps optimised for their mobile's
screen or even only calling up the area the user is in with devices like
the Nokia N95 pictured, with the two or three layers that we have
pre-chosen on the web appearing intuitively on one of the soft keys. Via
WAP, XHTML or HTML, opening something like Google Maps would be
unwieldy and use a lot of unnecessary bandwidth, whilst trying to
navigate 20 layers to the one you want on a 2.6" QVGA screen not the
best user experience.

Mobile VAS to MVNO; the leap from
having some form of mobile services or shop, to becoming an MVNO is not
an easy one to jump, and in the last few years I have seen many terrible
MVNOs ideas, but also many good ones that fell down on the sheer
economics or just the size of leap of faith required to become an MVNO
or get backing to do so. Many of these pretenders could have, and now
are, evaluating or developing an On Device Portal strategy or product to
go to market with.

These two functions allow us to
take personalised information from very rich sources on a battery,
screen and connection constrained device that we always want to be
smaller and more frugal (the mobile phone) rather than ever bigger and
more powerful (computers).

originally posted by Christian Borrman 19:43pm 12/11/06

What is an On Device Portal?

An On Device Portal or ODP is
an application that is user-, function-, or provider-specific and allows
users to access, record, send or exchange information more quickly,
data efficiently and easily than via multiple WAP pages and WAP portal,
moreover it provides a uniform service that looks the same on all levels
of compatible device (from 2 year-old low end, to brand new top-end
handsets), a service which is uniform across multiple handset
manufacturers and underlying OSs, and across all network operators.

Essentially an ODP plugs the
gap between service convergence and device convergence, providing user
or community convergence (see above in Latest).

WAP and ODP serve different
functions, just like the website vs. the portal, ad ODP should be a
"route" to obtain info quickly and as effortlessly as possible, whereas a
WAP site allows you a gateway to general information. The key
difference here is that unlike the web, a phone interface is not the
most conducive to personalising, entering information, or choosing info
for customising the ODP experience. This is why the better ODPs
complement a website, where the user can customise their most commonly
used info, or that info most relevant to being on the move and ad it to a
mobile "briefcase". A typical website can have dozens of channels or
top line navigation buttons, like the BBC for example; It is hard enough
sometimes to navigate the bbc.co.uk even on a large LCD screen, let
alone on a mobile screen. This is not a criticism of the BBC, not its
site, which is one of the best websites out there, but just the sheer
overload of information means that it does not lend itself to a general
WAP site or ODP that has not been customised via the web, or entered by
people who are familiar with the web. I use the BBC and FT sites
constantly, however, an BBC ODP would allow me to take my most used or
most useful channels with me on the move, for example: Food/recipes;
weather in 3 locations (work, home, other); tech, business and UK news;
and TV alerts and schedules for Top Gear, Friday Night with Jonathan
Ross and that's about it. I could do this in just a few clicks on the
web, with a "add to my ODP" button next to all content - setting this up
on my mobile would be a unique experience; never to be repeated. So
where does WAP figure here? Well it doesn't! WAP is what I use to browse
google for the three new bands on Jonathan Ross, and to see if the
Hamster has fallen off of another driving seat while doing 300mp/h
again. With the FT ODP, I would have their currency converter (which
like supermarkets, the FT seem to move the most frequently visited
sections around just to annoy me), the only columnists like Lucy
Kellaway, and my relevant/most read news channels.

In a sense, ODPs complement and
feed WAP, with your info coming to your phone daily, links to relevant
info on Vodafone Live or Orange World or whatever WAP portal you
operator has will encourage WAP usage. In a few words, WAP is a gateway
to general information, and just one is enough, ODPs are portals to
specific information, and expect to have a few on your phone in the
month's to come. Additionally, unlike WAP, ODPs allow companies to
accurately track usage and understand their customers better.

originally posted by Christian Borrman 20:43pm 10/11/06

Mobile Web 2.0 and the ODP

Web 2.0 and even more so Mobile
Web 2.0 are the new black of mobile and internet. They are the new
"wicked" of the english language, the new "holistic approach" of
consulting, and the new "going forward" of financial lingo. In a few
words, web 2.0 is the most cringe worthy word of our time, crossing the
barriers of sections and sectors, to be coined alike by shameless carpet
bombing linkedin and ecademy whores to marketing managers and people
who actually are movers and shakers in business and should know better.

So what is its relevance here
and to the ODP. Well, in a word, Web 2.0 is AJAX. It is a word that many
of the above will have heard of, and may use, but if you ask them what
AJAX is and why it defines Web 2.0, well, as we English say - you sort
the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys and get to the heart of
Web 2.0 - the so what? Well web 2.0 essentially allows you to sort
through the masses of dross on the internet more quickly and efficiently
and goes to the next natural progression of the web: from"look at all
this info out there" to "this is where I get my info on X". The ODP
complements this new fangled web perfectly, and lets you take the next
logical step from "This is where I get my info on X" and "I take this,
that and the other of X with me on my mobile". For me, the best of web
1.0 was probably "The Register"- biting, journalism free of the Rupert
Murdoch-esque grip of the publishing world and its online offshoots. Web
2.0 will be when I can log onto the register and have all the key areas
of the main channels on the front page, mobile web 2.0; well it is
difficult on the phone, if nothing else for its limited processing,
connection and screen size, however, an ODP fed from a good web 2.0
website - its the closest thing we have to mobile web 2.0 with a
straight face.

originally posted by Christian Borrman 17:52pm 22/12/06

ODP programming language choices

The choices when it comes to what the application is developed in depends on two main and one additional criteria:

Distribution - how many, how few phones it will work on; is it just Nokias, just high-end, as many phones as possible, etc

Functionality - does the application need to access deep functionality of the phone, i.e. GSM codecs, AT Commands, etc.

Funding/politics - basically; you can
go for point one or point two, if you want both or there is an agenda
(proving a certain technology, DRM, etc.) you need deep pockets, but
then if you are playing in the mobile space you should be used to this
;-)

Quick overview of ODP programming language choices... coming soon.

Originally posted by Christian Borrman 18:05pm 22/12/06

ODP Killer apps

I could not throw down the
jargon gauntlet above without diving my tongue firmly into cheek and
starting the next section with some prime jargon. So what are the key
ODP USPs, that will define our KPIs in the future:

Personal Information Management (PIM), as
we move from a world of "this is my laptop and I cannot work until I
have Outlook and Office premium edition installed" to a world of 1gb
Gmail and MSN, basically our info has become centralised. trying to
access this info via WAP will be, well challenging, and if you do not
know your pop3 settings for your PC, why will you for your mobile: the
Gmail ODP is clearly the way forward

News/RSS/etc. lets face it; news WAP
site are terrible, and RSS is that terrible combination of boring and
complicated... get with it, I would download an ODP for The Register,
the FT and the BBC tomorrow, and in doing so a) visit their site more
often, and b) forget their competition forever!

Magazines; We all have our favourite
magazines, some have tried to become MVNOs, most have email newsletters
to capture our imagination mid-print. However, our consumption is
changing, we now forgive print for being up to 2 months out of date for a
monthly magazine because of all the glossy pictures and the ability to
relax on the sofa on a Sunday or on a flight thumbing the pages... but
at the moment we go elsewhere for the mid-week fix, in the form of
different web-sites, weekly magazines, etc. The sensible magazine would
reward and keep our custom with up-to the second info on what of their
mag most matters to me, you and the guy in the lounge with the same
magazine as me who will be sitting in seat 2C, but needs to know about
the latest gadget as or before it hits the press releases.

Entertainment: In the UK a major cinema
chain has an IVR based cinema ordering system that should work well with
mobile. The problem starts with saying your location, lets say for
example "Chelsea" and it responds "searching for Heathrow"... at this
point you hand up and queue. However, an ODP for cinema, gigs and events
and even bars.

Location based information and services (cell, GPS and even wi-fi hotspot)

Community based services, from social networking to newspaper services

Peer to Peer (P2P): legal swapping and sharing of photos, calendar, videos, etc. without having to post to a central repository, probably done via IM

All these services are essentially what I have heard operators refer to as "blackberry
2.0" or more widely referred to as "mobile web 2.0" applications that take mobile usage and date
beyond email and WAP sports, news and weather.